Introduction to Sociological Research

As a science, sociology uses various tools to establish knowledge about the social world as one step in the process of producing explanatory (and ideally, predictive) theory. The purpose of this
course is to introduce students to different sociological methods, including survey research and associated quantitative/statistical analysis, interviewing, ethnography, historical-comparative and
archival research, experimentation, and computer simulation. We will review basic principles for applying these methods, and discuss the assumptions behind each and the kind of insight each
yields. The class is required of sociology majors, and satisfies the College Quantitative Data Analysis requirement.